Movie Review: Baywatch

Paramount Pictures

Director: Seth Gordon

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach, Jon Bass, Ilfenesh Hadera, Priyanka Chopra, Hannibal Buress, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

Date Seen: Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Theater: Cinemark Polaris

Overall Rating: C


Adapting a television show into a movie is difficult, and it doesn't always work out for a number of reasons. For one thing, which characters do you use if there was a large cast? Will they adapt a particular storyline or create something new? What is the tone? Who do you cast and how will they stack up to the original? What references are you going to drop for fans of the show?

Unfortunately, most of the time these gambles don't pay off and the movie just doesn't work. To name a few attempts at this, there have been Starsky and Hutch, The A-Team, Get Smart, Charlie's Angels, Power Rangers, 21 Jump Street, and The Addams Family. From that list alone there is a wide spectrum of quality from terrible and forgettable (Starsky and Hutch) to the mediocre (Charlie's Angels) and the pretty fantastic (21 Jump Street). The best adaptations always find a way to do something new and different while remaining true to the source material's spirit. They don't use fan service as a crutch when telling the story or deciding the direction of the movie, nor do they stray too far from what made the original series great.

I can't speak about the Baywatch television show as I have never seen an episode of it. Having grown up in the 90s I was familiar with what it was but it was pretty much before my time. As a newcomer to the film adaptation, having known nothing of the show other than it featured lifeguards doing crazy stuff and had Pamela Anderson and David Hasslehoff on it, how did I feel? Well, it was a pretty mediocre movie.

In the film, Mitch Buchanan (Dwayne Johnson) is the macho leader of Baywatch, an elite lifeguard unit that protects the beach. In the middle of recruiting, Mitch's boss dumps onto him Matt Brody (Zac Efron), a disgraced Olympian swimmer with two gold medals as a PR move. The two butt heads consistently as Brody falls for fellow recruit Summer Quinn (Alexandra Daddario). Meanwhile, a sinister plot begins to unfold as the dead body of a city councilman is pulled out a yacht fire and the two must learn to work together.

I LOVE watching Dwayne Johnson, who will always be The Rock to me, in practically anything. He's just a really likeable guy and he pulls off comedy and action really well. Even in a bad movie, he is watchable and charismatic. I loved him in Get Smart with Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway, and he is really excellent as Mitch in this movie. This movie was a passion project for Johnson and it shows in how much effort he put into his performance and into the movie overall. The guy is like a living action figure as much as he is a kid in an adult body, except he's playing with bigger toys in the form of sets and props. Zac Efron is also great in this movie, to me he is one of the most underrated comedic actors working today. He has great timing and he's like the Rock in that he can do action and comedy pretty seamlessly. I really enjoyed watching them play off each other and I liked the banter back-and-forth between them throughout the movie.

Unfortunately, those two are the highlights of the movie. The rest of the cast doesn't have much to do except be eye candy, which I guess is the point of the show anyway, and I didn't really grasp or understand what the villain was trying to do. She didn't come off as menacing or dangerous, I just didn't take Priyanka Chopra (who is great on Quantico) seriously in this role. The cameos of Hasselhoff and Anderson are great for fan service, but they feel somewhat shoehorned in. The decision to make this an action/comedy was a wise decision, but it feels like most of the time they were trying too hard. The jokes don't always work and the humor feels at times awkward and forced. One particular joke that comes to mind is involving Ronnie, the awkward recruit who loves CJ, having an...issue...with his little friend that worked better in a similar scenario back in American Pie 2. One joke that I did enjoy was the running joke of Johnson calling Efron by a bunch of boy band names, it was a cute joke that worked and I'm glad they threw it in there.

Efron's Brody doesn't get much of an arc, he seems like the same guy at the end as he is at the beginning. Nothing dynamic really happens, it's like a watered down version of better films in this genre. I didn't hate it, don't get me wrong. The movie is beautiful and I loved the imagery. Wait...I should probably clarify that. I meant the scenery and cinematography of the beach. You almost smell the ocean air. And yes...the women are gorgeous too. I had a good time watching it, it is a fun two hour ride. I wouldn't personally see it again, it wasn't the funniest movie I've seen in years nor was it that suspenseful or creative. It just tried too hard to be raunchy. I guarantee that in a few years this movie will be in the $5 bin at Walmart. It's one of those movies unfortunately.